1) In the past I have had difficulty comprehending and actively engaging with readings. To improve this and to better my learning, I will not only make key points from the set readings each week, but also raise questions from within the readings in a weekly blog post which will assists my performance.

Reading:
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2013

This is a reading that I really enjoyed, having studied Bordwell and Thompson’s ideas last year in Cinema.
A few things I took away from this reading is:
-Causality, time and space are all important in a narrative as these are largely what a narrative consists of
-“A narrative is what we usually mean by the term story” (75)
-“The set of all the events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly presented and those the viewer infers, constitutes the story” (p.76)
-Usually the “agents” of cause and effect are characters, as they are the ones who are directly affected/ they are the ones we see reacting to events.

-There are a myriad of ways cause and effect can be shown in a film. Some films may present more causes and withhold effects to build suspense and uncertainty in the viewer. It can also have the adverse affect when it is in the vice versa,

“As we watch a film, we construct story time on the basis of what the plot presents.” Sometimes the time is definitive and is shown and explained in detail, other times we as a viewer, are to build up our own timeline based on both assumptions and what is shown.
Time in a film has multiple ways of being shown, including flashbacks, showing the same action several times from different points of view. As a viewer, we are to try figure out the significance in having those particular directorial decisions.

The associational form differs slightly from abstract form as the images and sounds that have been compiled together may not have any “logical” connection to the viewer, yet are able to produce an emotional response without the viewer being given specific cues or concepts by the director.
Experimental film, other wise known as avant-garde films may have no story as such, as the meanings may be interpreted a myriad of ways due to the fact that there is not always a clear narrative.
The director or filmmaker’s purpose may be to express or evoke a particular emotion from the viewer by the abstract images, sounds or colours they have chosen. Numerous different types of footage are used, not just film, many which rely on large amounts of editing. Examples of these are found footage or collections of images.
Form in an abstract film relies on theme and variations and there are many symbols and reoccurring motifs to further develop this.